Perceived treatment burden and health-related quality of life in association with healthcare utilisation among patients attending multiple outpatient clinics

Table 1 Characteristics of the study population included in 2018, their questionnaire scores on the MTBQ, SF-12 and use of healthcare services

	N	%
Total	930	100
Females	421	45.3
Age (years)		median 69 (IQI, 60–74)
Number of medical conditions^a		median 2 (IQI, 1–4)
Dyads of medical conditions across organ systems^a (most frequent)
Diabetes mellitus type II – Hypertension	117	12.6
Diabetes mellitus type II – Ischaemic heart disease	78	8.4
Hypertension—Cancer	77	8.3
Marital status
Married/registered with partner	610	66.0
Widower/divorced/unmarried	315	34.0
		Median (IQI)
Number of outpatient visits^b		7 (4–12)
Number of admissions^b		0 (0–1)
Days with admission^b		0 (0–1)
Number of GP contacts^b		12 (7–21)
Treatment burden, MTBQ score
High burden (≥ 22)	161	17.3
Median burden (10—< 22)	249	27.8
Low burden (< 10)	256	27.5
No burden (0)	264	28.4
Overall score		median 7.5 (IQI, 0–17.5)
		Mean (95%CI)
Health-related quality of life, SF-12
Physical Component Score		39.6 (28.8–48.9)
Mental Component Score		46.6 (38.6–55.1)

Abbreviations: CI Confidence Interval, GP General Practitioner, IQI Interquartile interval, MTBQ Multimorbidity Treatment Burden Questionnaire, SF- 12 Short Form- 12
^aAccording to the Danish Multimorbidity Index, which includes 39 conditions [22]
^bWithin the Central Denmark Region, one year prior to 1 August 2018. GP contacts include daytime consultations, emails and telephone calls

ISSN: 1477-7525